New Generation Wearable Antenna Based on Multimaterial Fiber for Wireless Communication and Real-Time Breath Detection
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hv photonics Review New Generation Wearable Antenna Based on Multimaterial Fiber for Wireless Communication and Real-Time Breath Detection Mourad Roudjane 1 , Mazen Khalil 1,2, Amine Miled 2 and Younés Messaddeq 1,* 1 Center for Optics, Photonics and Lasers (COPL), Department of Physics, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada; [email protected] (M.R.); [email protected] (M.K.) 2 LABioTRON Bioengineering Research Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Research Centre for Advanced Materials (CERMA), Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-418-656-5338 Received: 31 August 2018; Accepted: 30 September 2018; Published: 11 October 2018 Abstract: Smart textiles and wearable antennas along with broadband mobile technologies have empowered the wearable sensors for significant impact on the future of digital health care. Despite the recent development in this field, challenges related to lack of accuracy, reliability, user’s comfort, rigid form and challenges in data analysis and interpretation have limited their wide-scale application. Therefore, the necessity of developing a new reliable and user friendly approach to face these problems is more than urgent. In this paper, a new generation of wearable antenna is presented, and its potential use as a contactless and non-invasive sensor for human breath detection is demonstrated. The antenna is made from multimaterial fiber designed for short-range wireless network applications at 2.4 GHz frequency. The used composite metal-glass-polymer fibers permits their integration into a textile without compromising comfort or restricting movement of the user due to their high flexibility, and shield efficiently the antenna from the environmental perturbation. The multimaterial fiber approach provided a good radio-frequency emissive properties, while preserving the mechanical and cosmetic properties of the garments. With a smart textile featuring a spiral shape fiber antenna placed on a human chest, a significant shift of the operating frequency of the antenna was observed during the breathing process. The frequency shift is caused by the deformation of the antenna geometry due to the chest expansion, and to the modification of the dielectric properties of the chest during the breath. We demonstrate experimentally that the standard wireless networks, which measure the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) via standard Bluetooth protocol, can be used to reliably detect human breathing and estimate the breathing rate in real time. The mobile platform takes the form of a wearable stretching T-shirt featuring a sensor and a detection base station. The sensor is formed by a spiral-shaped antenna connected to a compact Bluetooth transmitter. Breathing patterns were recorded in the case of female and male volunteers. Although the chest anatomy of females and males is different compared, the sensor’s flexibility allowed recording successfully a breathing rate of 0.3 Hz for the female and 0.5 Hz for the male, which corresponds to a breathing rate of 21 breaths per minutes (bpm) and 30 bpm, respectively. Keywords: wearable antenna; multimaterial fibers; smart textile; wireless communication; human breath detection 1. Introduction Accurate monitoring of vital signs is very important, and conventionally this work has been done by a health care professional at clinics or hospitals. In most countries, the cost associated with health Photonics 2018, 5, 33; doi:10.3390/photonics5040033 www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics Photonics 2018, 5, 33 2 of 20 care services continues to soar because of the increasing price of medical instruments and hospital care. This would impose a significant burden on the socio-economic structure of the countries [1]. Nowadays, we are witnessing a growing demand for “intelligent environments”, powered by emergent concepts such as the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT relies on sensors and actuators which are connected to a single network allowing the transmission of information. The use of elements that are applied directly to the body for capturing/communicating of data, such as sensors, could be an alternative diagnostic tool for monitoring important physiological signs and activities of an individual in real-time. Thus, the use of clothing, which is part of everyday life of persons, appears to be the most natural form to integrate electronic devices. Such garments are often called smart textiles. Smart textiles can be defined as textiles that are able to sense and respond to changes in their environment. They may be divided into two classes: passive and active smart textiles. Passive smart textiles have the ability to change their properties according to an environmental stimulation. For example, a highly insulating coat would remain insulating to the same degree irrespective of the outside temperature. Wide range of capabilities, including anti-microbial, anti-odor, anti-static, and bullet proof are other examples in this category. Active smart textiles feature both sensors and actuators. In this case, the sensor is used to detect a signal, while the actuator acts upon the detected signal [2]. Active smart textiles are able to detect different signals from the environment such as temperature, light intensity, vibrations, and pollution and act using various textile-based, flexible, or miniaturized actuators. Smart textiles present a challenge in several fields such as medicine [3], sport [4], fashion [5], and military [6]. This innovation will favor the interaction between the users and their environment, and should have a wide potential of applications in our daily life. 1.1. Smart Textile Biosensors and Physical Signals Many research projects are dedicated to exploring and developing smart textiles for medicine and healthcare [3]. Wearable sensors can measure several physiological signals/parameters as well as activities. Nowadays, telemedicine is improving personal health care thanks to the development of wearable monitoring system. Indeed, wearable devices allow physiological signals to be continuously monitored during normal daily activities. For example, a patient with chronic diseases, pulmonary or heart problems, will continuously and simply monitor their health and send updates to their physician through the Internet. This can overcome the problem of infrequent clinical visits that can only provide a brief window into the physiological status of the patient. Biosensors integrated into textiles have been used for electrocardiogram (ECG) [7], electromyography (EMG) [8], and electroencephalography (EEG) [9–11]. Textile with integrated luminescent elements for biophotonic sensing [12], conductive yarn for activity sensing [1], thermocouples for temperature sensing, along with shape-, strain-, and movement-sensitive elements have been demonstrated [13,14]. The physiological signals measured with wearable sensors need a two-stage communication to transmit the data to the remote healthcare server. In the first stage, a short-range communication protocol is employed to transmit the measured data to a nearest gateway, such as smartphone, computer, custom-designed field-programmable gate array (FPGA), or a microcontroller-based processing board. The gateway is responsible for advanced data processing, display, and the next long range communication stage, where the processed signal is transmitted to a distant server placed in a healthcare facility. The data can be transmitted over the Internet or cellular communication network such as general packet radio service (GPRS), 3G/4G, high speed packet access (HSPA), and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) services [15–17]. The general overview of the remote health monitoring system is presented in Figure1. Photonics 2018, 5, 33 3 of 20 Figure 1. General overview of the remote health monitoring system. Breathing (or respiration) is an important physiological task in living organisms. Breathing rate (BR) is a vital sign used to monitor the progression of illness and an abnormal BR is an important indicator of serious illness. Variation in BR can be used to predict potentially serious clinical events such as heart attack [18,19]. For example, using changes in BR measurements, patients could have been identified as high risk up to 24 h before the event with 95.5% confidence [20]. BR monitoring devices are separated into two categories: contact and non-contact sensors. In contact BR monitoring sensor, a direct physical contact with the body is needed. However, in non-contact monitoring sensor, the BR is measured without making contact with the subject’s body [21]. The most popular contact-based approach to derive the BR is from the ECG signal [22]. The ECG measurements have been performed using different techniques such as conductive textile patches [23], and piezoelectric transducer [24]. However, these solutions require electrodes that should be securely attached to the user’s body, which causes certain discomfort during long term use. Consequently, the contactless approach for BR monitoring is highly suggested. Textile based sensing is an important alternative which provides a more conformable and user friendly approach for respiratory monitoring. The experimental results show that a simple sensor consisting of conductive filament yarns can be used to monitor human breathing activity [25]. These types of sensors are integrated into textile by different methods [26]. Weft-Knitted Strain Sensor made from silver coated nylon was